Fight the Treatment Industrial Complex

AFSC-Arizona staff are amazing advocates for prisoners - and as such, are true blessings to our communities. Spend time on their site - lots of resources.

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NATIVE RESISTANCE AND THE CARCERAL STATE

Retiring Arizona Prison Watch...

This site was originally started in July 2009 as an independent endeavor to monitor conditions in Arizona's criminal justice system, as well as offer some critical analysis of the prison industrial complex from a prison abolitionist/anarchist's perspective. It was begun in the aftermath of the death of Marcia Powell, a 48 year old AZ state prisoner who was left in an outdoor cage in the desert sun for over four hours while on a 10-minute suicide watch. That was at ASPC-Perryville, in Goodyear, AZ, in May 2009.

Marcia, a seriously mentally ill woman with a meth habit sentenced to the minimum mandatory 27 months in prison for prostitution was already deemed by society as disposable. She was therefore easily ignored by numerous prison officers as she pleaded for water and relief from the sun for four hours. She was ultimately found collapsed in her own feces, with second degree burns on her body, her organs failing, and her body exceeding the 108 degrees the thermometer would record. 16 officers and staff were disciplined for her death, but no one was ever prosecuted for her homicide. Her story is here.

Marcia's death and this blog compelled me to work for the next 5 1/2 years to document and challenge the prison industrial complex in AZ, most specifically as manifested in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I corresponded with over 1,000 prisoners in that time, as well as many of their loved ones, offering all what resources I could find for fighting the AZ DOC themselves - most regarding their health or matters of personal safety.

I also began to work with the survivors of prison violence, as I often heard from the loved ones of the dead, and learned their stories. During that time I memorialized the Ghosts of Jan Brewer - state prisoners under her regime who were lost to neglect, suicide or violence - across the city's sidewalks in large chalk murals. Some of that art is here.

In November 2014 I left Phoenix abruptly to care for my family. By early 2015 I was no longer keeping up this blog site, save occasional posts about a young prisoner in solitary confinement in Arpaio's jail, Jessie B.

I'm deeply grateful to the prisoners who educated, confided in, and encouraged me throughout the years I did this work. My life has been made all the more rich and meaningful by their engagement.

I've linked to some posts about advocating for state prisoner health and safety to the right, as well as other resources for families and friends. If you are in need of additional assistance fighting the prison industrial complex in Arizona - or if you care to offer some aid to the cause - please contact the Phoenix Anarchist Black Cross at PO Box 7241 / Tempe, AZ 85281. collective@phoenixabc.org

Thursday, November 13, 2014

So, for those of you who missed it, there's no longer such a thing as a "contact visit" at the Maricopa County Jails. Prisoners are also now only allowed one "free" visit a week, which must be conducted via videophone from 4th Ave Jail or the Lower Buckeye Jail. All video visits from off-site are unlimited, however - so long as you are able to access a computer with a camera and the internet, and can afford the $12.95 every 20 minute visit will cost you.

As for the "inmate Services" fund this extra money is supposed to be going to: he should just refund it straight to the families, since the last time he had a chunk of change in the "Inmate Services" fund (where MCSO profits from the canteen sales presumably go, as well) he "misappropriated" it. Remember that $99 million he lost - almost $15 million of which came from this "Inmate Services" fundhe likes to force prisoners and their loved ones to contribute to?

There never was actual contact allowed that could have facilitated smuggling at "contact" visits when they had them anyway - not at Estrella, at least - the women were always chained to the tables when visitors sat across from them. Mothers weren't even allowed to hug their kids.MOre access to prisoners from family the world is great - but should be affordable and not result in fewer visitation privileges for those who can't afford it.

This
is just more of the same: extortion and exploitation of what is largely
a population of individuals who haven't yet even been convicted of a
crime. Arpaio needs to rein in his departmentalcorruption, really, if he wants to get that contraband issue under control, as far as I can see.

Anyway, this is what you should really be checking out - we got taken for a ride, people!

Face-to-face visitation has a new meaning for inmates at Maricopa
County jails now that in-person visits have been swapped for Skype-like
video chats.

On Thursday, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office
launched a Web-based video-visitation platform that eliminates in-person
visitations and expands visitation hours.

The system, developed
by Texas-based Securus Technologies, allows people from all over the
world to talk to any of the 8,500 inmates in the county's six jails via
video, as long as they have a high-speed Internet connection and a
webcam.

The Sheriff's Office is offering a promotional price of $5
for a 20-minute conversation, but that price will increase to $12.95
for 20 minutes after Jan. 1.

Securus is paying $2.3million to
provide 600 video stations to the six jails at no expense to the
taxpayers, according to Securus CEO Rick Smith.

The system, which
Securus says is the largest in the country, is expected to generate
thousands of dollars for the Sheriff's Office while increasing jail
security by eliminating the potential for contraband smuggling, an issue
during the more than 20,000 in-person visitations each month, according
to sheriff's officials.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said it will also
allow friends and family members to schedule visits without having to
miss work or drive down to a facility.

"It's a win for everyone involved," Arpaio said.

Remote visitations can be scheduled seven days a week between 7 a.m. and 9:30 p.m at visitfromhome.net/maricopa. Visits must be scheduled at least 24 hours in advance.

Inmates
can receive one free on-site visit per week, but they will be held
through the video platform at either the Fourth Avenue or Lower Buckeye
jails.

On-site visitation hours at those jails have expanded to
seven days a week between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., up from a single visit on
Sunday or Monday.

Sheriff's officials say on-site visits will no
longer be conducted at the Durango, Estrella, Tent City or Towers jails,
but inmates there have access to video chats.

Securus will
receive 100 percent of the revenue until the number of calls reaches
8,000 per month. Ten percent of the excess revenue will then go to MCSO,
and that will increase to 20 percent once the company's initial
investment is recovered.

Money generated from the system will go toward the Sheriff's Office Inmate Services Fund for education.
The Sheriff's Office will store video calls for 60 days and will monitor calls for criminal or sexual activity.

When her daughter was first incarcerated in Arizona's Perryville State
Prison, "Rae" sent her money orders bought at the local cash-checking
place or from Walmart. But those took too long to clear, leaving her
daughter without needed supplies, so she began driving to the post
office to buy money orders. Throughout her daughter's four years in
prison, Rae has sent her money twice a month - $100 on the first of the
month and whatever she can afford (usually $50 or less) on the 15th of
the month.

"When she first got there, she was issued two pairs of
underwear, which had been worn by someone else," Rae told Truthout. So
Rae sent her daughter money to buy her own underwear, bras and socks as
well as tennis shoes and a TV set. "It was $300 for the TV," she
recalled.

Her daughter earns 35 cents an hour cleaning inside the
prison. Although the prison supplies some necessities, like one roll of
toilet paper each week and a limited number of tampons or pads, Rae's
daughter relies on the money from home to get her through each week.
These money orders enable her to buy the additional toilet paper and
feminine hygiene supplies she needs each month. It also enables her to
buy Tylenol and cold medicine as well as pay the $4 co-pay on each
medical visit. "Occasionally she can splurge and buy herself a candy
bar, but that's rare," Rae said.

Services that had previously
been provided by the jail or prison, such as medical care,
transportation, phone and communication services, food, and even money
exchanges, are increasingly handled by private companies.

On
October 15, 2014, however, Arizona changed the way family members like
Rae can send money. Now, instead of paying $1.25 for a money order at
the post office, Rae must use one of three companies - JPay, Global
TelLink or Keefe - to send her daughter money. To send $50 through
Keefe, Rae also needs to pay a $4.75 internet transaction fee. Families
without internet access can deposit money by phone - for a fee of $5.75 -
or in a storefront transaction for $5.95. (Global TelLink and JPay have
different fee structures.)

Despite the added cost, Rae is
determined to send her daughter the same amount of money. "I'm going to
have to eat the fees and make up the money somewhere else," she said.
"I'll have to give something up. So will my husband." The couple has
already had to sell their camper to cover the cost of visiting their
daughter once a month. They've cut down on going out and other
activities that cost money. On occasion, they've also had to choose
between sending money to their daughter in prison or helping their son,
who is not. "I feel bad that I can't help him because all our money is
going to his sister," Rae said.

Only 8 percent of the nation's
prison population is held in private prisons. But, as Rae's experience
and recent news stories have demonstrated, private companies have found
other ways to profit from bodies in government-run prisons. Services
that had previously been provided by the jail or prison, such as medical
care, transportation, phone and communication services, food, and even
money exchanges, are increasingly handled by private companies.

Sending in Money Costs MoneyAs
Rae's story shows, prison systems have contracted with private
companies to handle money sent by family members to their loved ones
inside. In the federal prison system, the contract was awarded to Bank
of America. In 32 state systems, the contract belongs to private company
JPay.

In February 2014, New Jersey prisons began utilizing JPay
to handle these monetary transactions. "Before, it would only cost a
stamp and the cost of the money order," said "Pam," currently
incarcerated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. "Now, it
cost our families or friends $4.95 in addition to whatever amount they
send us." Loved ones also have the option of mailing a money order to
JPay, but the money takes seven to 10 days to be credited to a woman's
account. Pam's mother balked at paying an additional $7 and mailed a
money order. The money was not credited to Pam for 14 days.

At
Edna Mahan, commissary - or the prison store - is only available every
other week. For women like "Pam" whose family chooses to save money and
mail money orders, the delay means missing the chance to buy
necessities, such as shampoo and feminine hygiene supplies.

"If a
person owes restitution, the prison takes 55 percent of whatever money
he receives," a mother told Truthout. Thus, to put $56 in his prison
account so that he can buy food, she had to send $125.

"Gwen" has
also experienced delays of up to four weeks when her family mails a
money order to JPay. She told Truthout that, while women can order from
commissary every two weeks, certain items, such as photos, clothing and
beauty supplies, are only available once a month. In addition, many
women rely on food items at commissary to supplement the prison's meals,
which she described as "truly inedible."

Daily wages at Edna
Mahan range from $5 at the top-paying commissary job to $2.40 for
working in the kitchen or cleaning housing units. If a woman is sick or
unable to work, as in Gwen's case, she must either learn to go without
supplies or rely on money from family. "It isn't a lot of money, but $28
can mean a whole commissary for me," Gwen explained.

California
is another state that has instituted JPay to handle money sent to
prisoners. But the fees make sending money an exorbitant expense for
many family members. "Samantha," for instance, must send her son twice
the amount of money that he needs. "If a person owes restitution, the
prison takes 55 percent of whatever money he receives," she told
Truthout. Thus, to put $56 in his prison account so that he can buy
food, she had to send $125. And that's not including JPay's service
fees, which vary depending on the amount of money sent. "There's no
readily available list of charges," she told Truthout. "I literally had
to call and hunt down how much would be charged."

"If you put
money in a couple of times a month, you pay that fee a couple of times a
month. Families with the least amount of money get hit the hardest."

JPay
provides money transfers to more than 1.7 million people or nearly 70
percent of the US prison population. It charges state prison systems
nothing for handling payments and, for every payment processed, it sends
between 50 cents and $2.50 back to the prison. According to an exposé in Time, JPay sent approximately $4,000 each month to the Illinois
Department of Corrections in 2013.

"Jill"'s daughter has less
than two years on her sentence at Arizona's Perryville prison. When
Arizona announced the switch to electronic money transfers, Jill decided
to skip the fees and send a money order for the total amount her
daughter would need during her last year behind bars. But, she told
Truthout, many of the family members she has met cannot afford that
option. "Many families have to budget in order to send money," she said.
"If you put money in a couple of times a month, you pay that fee a
couple of times a month. Families with the least amount of money get hit
the hardest."

The Kick-Out Fee - and the Fees That Go With It

A
person leaving the Arizona prison system for the first time is given
$100 upon her release. The money, saved from the wages earned at prison
jobs, is called the "kick-out fee."

Until 2013, people released
from Arizona's prisons were given the kick-out fee in the form of a
check. However, banks often refused to cash the check with a prison ID,
usually the only form of identification many women have after years in
prison. Thus, accessing their only $100 first required a trip to the
Department of Motor Vehicles for identification or finding a friend
willing to deposit the check for them.

Now,
they are issued a debit card through Bank of America. "If women are
coming out after a long time, they don't know how to use debit cards,"
Jill explained. "They're scared to death about using them." In addition,
Bank of America charges a $1.50 monthly maintenance fee and, like many
other banks, charges a $1.50 withdrawal fee if a person uses a non-Bank
of America ATM and a 25 cent point-of-sale fee for every transaction.

No
staff member explains the various fee structures, which means that
people are unaware that they deplete their funds each time they use the
card. If a person chooses to withdraw the entire amount from her debit
card, she is charged a $5 fee.

In addition, if she loses the
card, no replacement is issued. Her money is simply gone. For a woman in
a halfway house, shelter or other temporary living situation, this
means sleeping with the card tucked into her bra or panties.

Arizona
is not alone in utilizing this new method. The Center for Public Integrity recently reported on Bank of America's contract with the
Federal Bureau of Prisons to issue debit cards to people upon release.
Under that contract, they've issued cards to nearly 50,000 people. The
Center's report has spurred a government audit into the contract.

Privatizing Health Care - But at What Cost?

"We live by violence, but we die by neglect."

Handling
prisoner accounts is not the only service that has been privatized.
Across the country, jails and prisons have been contracting with
private, for-profit companies to provide medical services to people
inside.

Cecily McMillan experienced this firsthand during her 58
days on Rikers Island, New York City's island jail complex. When she
arrived, she was denied her prescribed medications for mild anxiety and
ADHD. Instead, jail medical staff gave her BuSpar, the same medication,
McMillan says, that every woman was prescribed regardless of her actual
needs. After three weeks of fighting for her proper medication, a fight
that included help from sympathetic city council members, McMillan had
her medications reinstated. But that was not the only medical horror she
encountered.

She recalled making an appointment to see a
gynecologist. Warned that the jail's male gynecologist was "kind of
handsy," she requested to see the jail's female gynecologist only to be
told that she wasn't available for six weeks. When she saw the doctor,
he informed her that she needed to undergo a gynecological scrape even
though McMillan had had a check-up before entering Rikers. "He scraped
me until I was bleeding," she recalled. When he finished, McMillan
realized that his fly had been open the whole time.

During her 58
days on the island, McMillan also saw how medical care could be deadly:
Judith had been prescribed low-dose methadone pills for back pain,
McMillan recalled. But when Judith arrived at Rikers, the doctors
insisted that she take methadone in high-dose liquid form. Taking higher
dosages of methadone induced intense vomiting in Judith, who had
hepatitis C. McMillan recalls seeing her friend vomit blood and what she
described as "chunks of her liver." The women in the housing unit
demanded that the officers call the doctor. When medical staff failed to
respond, they physically carried Judith to the clinic. Days later,
Judith was dead.

Judith's death is only one of a string of recent
deaths on Rikers Island. In 2013, 19-year-old Andy Henriquez died from a
tear in his aorta after his pleas for medical attention were ignored.
That same year, 46-year-old Carlos Mercado and 39-year-old Bradley
Ballard died after their medications were withheld. The families of all
three men are suing Corizon, the private medical provider that has held
the contract for medical services at Rikers since 2003. However,
according to DNAinfo, Corizon's contract with New York City stipulates
that the city will represent the firm in lawsuits arising from its care.
It also ensures that the city will cover costs arising from medical
malpractice or civil rights violations.

New York is not alone in
turning to privatized health care for people behind bars. In 2011,
Florida governor Rick Scott contracted with Corizon to provide medical
care in its state prison system for $1.2 billion. Corizon took complete
control in 2013. According to an investigation by The Palm Beach Post,
three months later the number of deaths "shot to a 10-year high," with
30 deaths in four of the past seven months.

Corizon currently
holds contracts in 27 states with approximately 345,000 people under
their care. (In October 2013, Therese Brumfeld, vice president of
Corizon's provider operations and purchasing, stated that Corizon had
contracts in 29 states with over 400,000 people.) From 2008 to 2013,
Corizon has been sued 660 times for malpractice.

In Alabama, the
Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal suit against the state's
prison system for ignoring the medical and mental health needs of its
prisoners. (Corizon provides medical care only. MHM, another private
company, holds the contract for mental health care.) Unlike its contract
with New York City, Corizon's 34-month, $224 million contract with
Alabama requires it to pay for any legal work in the event of a lawsuit,
even if it is not named in the suit.

Arizona recently settled
class-action suit Parsons v. Ryan. The suit, filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2012, charged that the state ignored the
basic needs, including medical needs, of people in its prison system for
years. Corizon took over the state prison's health care system in March
2013 after the state terminated its contract with private health care
provider Wexford following multiple deaths and accusations of medical
neglect.

However, medical care did not improve under Corizon and
the ACLU continued its suit. On October 14, 2014, Arizona settled the
suit, agreeing to meet more than 100 health care performance measures,
including monitoring people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes
and hypertension as well as improving pregnancy and dental care.

Before
the court decides whether to approve the settlement, however, each of
the 33,000 people in Arizona state prisons must receive notice of the
settlement and an opportunity to submit comments to the court. David
Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project and co-lead counsel
on Parsons, estimated that the process would probably take two months.
The settlement does not become effective until the court grants its
approval.

In the meantime, health care needs continue to go
unaddressed. The day after the settlement was announced, Jill spoke with
her daughter who told her that her yard had no health needs request
forms, which every person must fill out to start the process of
receiving medical attention.

"We live by violence, but we die by neglect," a woman told McMillan when she entered Rikers.

After
hearing stories from her daughter, Jill doesn't dispute this. She
recalls her daughter telling her about a woman on her yard whose
complaints about bleeding and pain were ignored. She was finally taken
to the hospital where she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She died in
her 30s.

"My daughter went in a very healthy 25-year-old," Jill
said. "She was not given a life sentence or death. She should be given
enough medical care so that when she comes out, she can resume living a
normal life."

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Are Social Workers Helping Inmates Rot in Solitary Confinement?

Posted: 10/22/2014 8:29

As I wrote in a blog post
several weeks ago, there are about 25,000 people held in solitary
confinement in supermax prison units called SHUs—security housing
units—and another 80,000 inmates housed in isolation cells in regular
prisons and jails. Many of these individuals are mentally ill. Some
are juveniles and/or pretrial detainees. No question they are being
subjected to cruel and unusual punishment regardless what different
courts may decide. The purpose of solitary confinement—if it should be
used at all—is to segregate the most dangerous criminals. But even
dangerous criminals should not be isolated for extended periods and
never indefinitely. Social workers and other mental health
practitioners are assigned to these units to provide care for the
inmates. Often they wind up feeding them medication and sleeping pills
so they will not totally lose their minds. In a warped sense, they are
helping them rot in their cells.

This ethical nightmare was brought to my attention recently by Moya Atkinson, a dynamic social worker who is very passionate about this issue.
Nearing 80 years old, you would think she would leave this fight to
younger advocates. She has organized a task force of social workers
committed to significantly restricting the use of solitary confinement
and eliminating its use for vulnerable populations such as the mentally
ill, juveniles, pregnant women, people with disabilities and pretrial
detainees. After she read my blog we met to discuss the issue and I
agreed to join the task force. While my focus was on the cruel and
unusual punishment individuals incur because of extended, indefinite and
indiscriminate use of solitary confinement, she was equally concerned
about ethical dilemmas faced by social workers and other mental health
professionals charged with providing care for individuals in solitary
confinement.

Ethical
dilemmas are familiar to social workers who often find themselves in
environments and situations that challenge their code of ethics. But
working in solitary confinement is a level of horror that few
encounter. Social work in correctional facilities which falls under the
umbrella of forensic social work is ripe with these challenges. What
should social workers do when they believe mentally ill inmates are
being mistreated in jails or prisons? Who does she or he complain to?
Often locked in an environment with violent individuals who are both
inmates and guards, how do social workers look out for their personal
safety concerns while seeking just treatment for inmates? These are
tough questions with no easy answers that the task force will wrestle
with.

Task force member Mary E. Buser, whose op-ed piece in the Washington Post
about her work with mentally ill inmates in solitary confinement at New
York City’s Rikers Island jail provided the impetus that spurred Moya
into organizing the task force, wrote about “doling out antidepressants,
antipsychotics, and mountains of sleeping pills,” in an effort to keep
the psyches of people in solitary from unraveling. Her job
was to determine if those in solitary confinement might reach the point
where they would kill themselves. How do you do that as a social
worker or mental health practitioner? Her brief time as acting chief of
mental health took her into the segregation unit
on Rikers Island known as the Bing. It was an experience she will
never forget. Yet social workers must provide services to people in
solitary confinement unless the practice is discontinued.

National social work organizations are involved in this effort. Task
force member Mel Wilson, manager of the Department of Social Justice
and Human Rights for the National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
has been active on this issue for years. He provided testimony
during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights on the use of solitary
confinement. Dr. Michel Coconis, chair of the Association for Community
Organizing and Social Administration (ACOSA) and a long-time activist
against the death penalty, also joined the task force which held its
kickoff meeting Wednesday at Columbia University School of Social Work.

Confronting the misuse of solitary confinement will be a challenge as
many in the “tough on crime” crowd see solitary confinement as
necessary and useful. However, there is mounting opposition to the
growing use of solitary confinement in our nation’s jails and prisons.
Conservative columnist George Will has equated solitary confinement with torture.
The New York City Department of Corrections recently ended solitary
confinement for 16 and 17 year olds. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin,
chair of the Judiciary Committee has held two subcommittee hearings on solitary confinement. Two bills have been introduced in the House—H.R. 4618 sponsored by Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA2) would create a commission to study its use, and H.R. 4124 sponsored by Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA29) would eliminate the use of solitary confinement in federal juvenile facilities.

Prosecutors and jailers scramble to deal with the effects of the law that reduces penalties for some crimes

California is the first state to downgrade certain drug possession cases from felonies to misdemeanors

Thousands of felons are now eligible for immediate release from prisons and jails after Prop 47's passage

Los
Angeles County Public Defender Ron Brown walked into a Pomona court
Wednesday and saw first-hand the impact of Proposition 47 — the
voter-approved initiative that reduces penalties for drug possession and
other nonviolent crimes.

His office had deliberately postponed
sentencing for a defendant facing more than a year behind bars for
possessing heroin and methamphetamine to the day after Tuesday's
election, waiting to see what voters would do.

The gambit worked. The man was sentenced and released from custody with no further jail time.

The
day after California voted to reduce punishments, police agencies,
defense attorneys, prosecutors and even some advocates were scrambling
to figure out exactly how it was going to work.The
greatest effect, experts said, would be in drug possession cases,
noting that California is now the first state in the nation to downgrade
those cases from felonies to misdemeanors. Thousands of felons are now
eligible for immediate release from prisons and jails.

City
attorneys accustomed to handling traffic tickets and zoning violations
are now responsible for prosecuting crimes that used to be felonies,
including forgeries, theft and shoplifting. District attorneys who used
to threaten drug offenders with felony convictions to force them into
rehabilitation programs no longer have that as an option. Social workers
said they worried that offenders who voluntarily seek treatment will
have trouble finding services. "It's
going to take a little while to figure out," said Molly Rysman, who
operates a housing program for the destitute who sleep on sidewalks in
L.A.'s skid row. She is glad that drug users now face only brief stays
in jail, if any time at all, but said options for someplace else to go
in L.A. are "dismal." Rysman said caseworkers now spend weeks trying to
find an opening for clients who need a detox bed or room in a treatment
program.

Proposition 47 sets aside funding for such programs, but the money may not materialize for another year, advocates said.

"I
can't say I agree with Proposition 47. It should have mandated
treatment," said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey. "Most of
the money from the initiative will go to mental health and substance
abuse treatment, but how we will get people to accept that treatment is
the question."

It is going to take time to evaluate that, but we're not conducting a mass release, today or tomorrow.- Nicole Nishida, L.A. County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman

Lacey
said her office would reevaluate the more serious cases downgraded by
Proposition 47 to determine whether there were other felony charges that
could be filed. Under the measure, thefts, bad check writing and
forgery charges are downgraded to misdemeanors if the stolen value is
$950 or less. Lacey said she was particularly concerned about cases
involving the theft of guns. Prosecutors, she said, "will be looking at
alternative charges for some of those cases, because we should all be a
little nervous when a firearm is involved."

Los Angeles City Atty.
Mike Feuer on Wednesday asked the City Council for $510,000 to hire 15
lawyers and assistants to handle the anticipated influx of misdemeanor
prosecutions, which previously would have been prosecuted as felonies by
the district attorney's office. He said his office expected to handle
13,500 new cases a year, most involving drug offenses.

Meanwhile,
jailers in Los Angeles County made preparations to deal with an unknown
number of inmates charged with felonies that are now misdemeanors.

Because
of severe overcrowding and court-ordered population caps, the Los
Angeles County jails do not typically hold those charged with
misdemeanors.

"It
is going to take time to evaluate that, but we're not conducting a mass
release, today or tomorrow," said Sheriff's Department spokeswoman
Nicole Nishida.

Legislative analysts predict that about 40,000
California offenders each year will now draw misdemeanor convictions
instead of felonies. Prison officials said they have identified 4,770
felons in custody who are eligible to seek resentencing. And L.A.
prosecutors have identified almost 4,000 offenders in the pipeline
between arrest and sentencing who might qualify for more lenient
treatment under the new law.

To get released, current inmates must prove that they are not a threat to the public.

Proposition
47 will also give a fresh chance to some three-strikes prisoners
serving life terms who have recently failed to obtain reduced sentences.

Under
a 2012 ballot measure, Proposition 36, most inmates serving
three-strikes sentences for relatively minor crimes can receive shorter
sentences unless a judge decides that they pose an "unreasonable risk of
danger to public safety." Michael Romano, an attorney who helped write
the measure, said the initiative did not define that risk for judges,
many of whom used their own criteria to decide whether someone was too
risky to release. The vast majority of three-strikers who have asked for
reduced sentences have been successful, but about 118 inmates have been
declared a risk to public safety, said Romano, who directs the Stanford
Law School Three Strikes Project.

Proposition 47 gives inmates in
that small group another opportunity to ask for shorter sentences if
their third strikes were for one of the minor felonies downgraded under
Proposition 47, Romano said.

Inmates whose strikes don't fall into
that category, he said, can also return to court and cite Proposition
47's new definition of an "unreasonable risk of danger," which Tuesday's
ballot measure defined as likely to commit serious or violent crimes
that include homicide, sexual assault and child molestation.

"It's
a clear message from voters that our law enforcement resources should
not be spent on three-strikes sentences or long felony sentences for
these types of crimes," Romano said.

The new law also derails drug
court, where felony charges were set aside for offenders who completed
treatment regimens. Those who succeed have a high success in staying
sober, but without the threat of jail, there is little incentive to
participate, said Mark Delgado, executive director of the Countywide
Criminal Justice Coordination Committee, which runs those programs.
Delgado said county officials are seeking a substitute.

"Regardless
of what the laws are on the books, we're asking, 'How do we best engage
the individuals who need treatment?'" he said.

Brown, L.A.
County's chief public defender, acknowledged that the proposition will
change the "carrot and stick" approach used to entice people into
rehabilitation with the promise of a lighter sentence. But he thinks
that can be managed.

"We're going to have to work a lot harder to convince people it's the best thing for you," Brown said.

As many folks may know, the AZ DOC recently sought an increase in their funding (apparently a Billion dollars isn't enough to feed that beast), partly to assure they have the necessary resources allocated to comply with the Parsons v Ryan settlement agreement, which compels the health care provider to hire more staff (people just aren't lining up for the jobs...). But the DOC also reports a rising prison population last year, for the first year in several. And they're opening that new 500-man Supermax unit at Lewis early next year - they can't get the staff they need at Lewis as it is, though, so I don't know how they plan to staff it even if they have the money to.Chuck Ryan is nearing retirement, I hope, as Jan Brewer bows out of office in January - there's another Republican coming in, but I'd think that guy would really want to start off clean at the AZ DOC and not keep putting more of the Good Old Boys in power there - they've done enough damage as it is. Maybe we should consider evidence-based, effective alternatives to throwing more money at the DOC to solve our growing prison population problem - especially to reduce recidivism.

That's not to say that I think the public education system is any less coercive and hostile to already-oppressed communities, though, than the prison system is - it seeks to cultivate good citizens and workers to serve the state and corporate elite, basically. Simply throwing more money there isn't going to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline so many kids are quickly tracked into.

There are some great programs though, and schools can be a good site of intervention to reduce incarceration rates for communities. Likewise, if you think some portion of your public is getting too upwardly-mobile, school systems are sites for undermining progressive programs, an example being when the dolt Tom Horne was state superintendent. Unfortunately, I don't see Arizona restoring the Tucson Ethnic Studies program anytime soon, despite the success it had with improving graduation and resiliency rates for students of color. Honestly, the election results this week were pretty grim. I guess people are going to have to hurt even more before they become ready to cast off their chains. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
is an excellent resource for folks researching poverty, income
inequality, funding criminal justice initiatives, and legislative reforms - arm yourselves with the facts here, at least. It's
considered a liberal think tank - keep that in mind when you look at
their policy recommendations, and know that I'm even left of that - but
their sources and stats are pretty solid, and we've got to start somewhere. I'd say investing in our communities
instead of the prisons is the place to begin to build anew.

Most states’ prison populations are at historic highs after decades
of extraordinary growth; in 36 states, the prison population has more
than tripled as a share of the state population since 1978. This rapid
growth, which continued even after crime rates fell substantially in
the 1990s, has been costly. Corrections spending is now the
third-largest category of spending in most states, behind education and
health care. If states were still spending on corrections what they
spent in the mid-1980s, adjusted for inflation, they would have about
$28 billion more each year that they could choose to spend on more
productive investments or a mix of investments and tax reductions.

Even
as states spend more on corrections, they are underinvesting in
educating children and young adults, especially those in high-poverty
neighborhoods. At least 30 states are providing less general funding
per student this year for K-12 schools than before the recession, after
adjusting for inflation; in 14 states the reduction exceeds 10
percent. Higher education cuts have been even deeper: the average
state has cut higher education funding per student by 23 percent since
the recession hit, after adjusting for inflation. Eleven states spent
more of their general funds on corrections than on higher education in
2013. And some of the states with the biggest education cuts in recent
years also have among the nation’s highest incarceration rates.

This
is not sound policy. State economies would be much stronger over
time if states invested more in education and other areas that can
boost long-term economic growth and less in maintaining extremely high
prison populations. The economic health of many low-income
neighborhoods, which face disproportionately high incarceration rates,
could particularly improve if states reordered their spending in such a
way. States could use the freed-up funds in a number of ways, such as
expanding access to high-quality preschool, reducing class sizes in
high-poverty schools, and revising state funding formulas to invest
more in high-poverty neighborhoods.

State incarceration rates
have risen primarily because states are sending a much larger share of
offenders to prison and keeping them there longer. States can reduce
their incarceration rates – without harming public safety – by
reclassifying low-level felonies to misdemeanors where appropriate,
expanding the use of alternatives to prison (such as fines and victim
restitution), shortening jail and prison terms, and eliminating prison
sentences for technical violations of parole/probation where no new
crime has been committed.

A number of states have enacted
criminal justice reforms in recent years. Some have reduced prison
populations sharply; reforms in New Jersey, New York, and California
for example, helped drive down prison populations in each of those
states by roughly 25 percent – while crime rates have continued to
fall.[1]
In most states, though, reforms have not had a large impact on the
size of prison populations, which remain extremely high nationally.
Moreover, states rarely have directed the savings from reform
explicitly to human capital investments (such as education) or
low-income neighborhoods.

States wishing to use the savings from
criminal justice reforms for productive purposes would do well to
adopt planning and budgeting mechanisms that can help them shift
priorities. These include:

A high-quality, long-term
forecast of the savings from specific reforms, made available to
lawmakers when they are considering reform bills;

An accepted process to estimate the annual savings from the reforms once enacted;

An established mechanism to shift those savings to productive uses, especially human capital investments; and

An independent commission to monitor implementation and enforce compliance with the reforms.

This
is not to say that states can use criminal justice reforms to fully
finance the increased education investments they need. First, there
is a timing issue; major savings from reducing incarceration likely
will accrue over a number of years, as reforms lead to prison closures
and a reduction in the prison population, but states need to invest
more in education more rapidly than that. In addition, states will
likely spend much of the savings from criminal justice reforms
elsewhere, in investments such as effective rehabilitative programs
that allow formerly incarcerated people to address mental illness and
addiction and lead productive lives, or in a mix of investments and tax
reductions.

State Prison Populations Have Grown Rapidly in Past 35 Years

State
corrections systems incarcerate the vast majority of prisoners in the
United States. State prisons account for 87 percent of the total
prisoner population, with the remaining 13 percent under federal
jurisdiction.[2]
When one considers the broader population of incarcerated people —
that is, including inmates in local jails either awaiting sentence or
serving a term of less than one year — state prisons account for just
under 60 percent of all people behind bars at any given point in time.[3]

The
overall state prison population has grown sizably since the late
1970s, from roughly 270,000 inmates in 1978 to more than 1.3 million in
2013.[4]
That growth far outpaced U.S. population growth. In the late
seventies, states imprisoned around 120 individuals for every 100,000
U.S. residents; in 2007 the state incarceration rate peaked at 450
individuals per 100,000 residents and has fallen only slightly since.[5]

Incarceration
rates have more than tripled in 36 states since 1978 and have
increased six-fold in four states (Mississippi, New Hampshire, North
Dakota, and Pennsylvania). Rates remain at near-peak levels:

Five
of those states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas
— had incarceration rates above 600 prisoners per 100,000 residents.

In one of those states, Louisiana, the incarceration rate stood at nearly 850 prisoners per 100,000 residents.

State Policies, Not Crime Levels, Are Biggest Drivers of Rising Incarceration Rates

Incarceration
rates are a function of four variables: the crime rate, the ratio of
arrests to crimes, the share of offenders sent to prison, and the
length of prison sentences. Research shows that the last two of these
are the biggest drivers of the increase in state incarceration rates
over the past several decades. Both the share of people sent to prison
and the length of their prison stays are under policymakers’ direct
control. Reforms aimed at reducing prison populations will need to
target these two areas.

More specifically, research on the causes of rising incarceration rates has found:

Crime rates have risen and fallen independently of incarceration rates. Crime
rates began rising in the early 1960s, roughly a decade before state
incarceration rates began rising. In the 1980s, violent and property
crime rates fluctuated (falling in the first half of the decade, then
rising in the second), while incarceration rates continued rising,
undergoing their greatest decade of growth. By the end of the 1990s,
crime rates had fallen to levels not seen since the 1970s, and they have
continued to fall throughout the 2000s; yet incarceration rates
continued to grow well into the 2000s, peaking in 2007.[6]

Arrests per crime have been relatively stable. Incarceration
rates may rise even when crime rates remain stable if police become
more effective at apprehending offenders (in other words, if the arrest
rate per crime increases). However, the likelihood of arresting
someone who has committed a crime remained relatively stable between
1980 and 2010. “[B]y the measure of the ratio of arrests to crimes, no
increase in policing effectiveness occurred from 1980 to 2010 that
might explain higher rates of incarceration,” a recent National
Research Council report concluded.[7]

The share of offenders sent to prison has climbed dramatically. For
all major crime types, the likelihood that an offender will go to
prison has risen sharply over the past 30 years. This is especially
true for drug offenses; the likelihood of being sent to prison for a
drug-related crime rose by 350 percent between 1980 and
2010. The National Research Council study estimated that the increase
in the share of offenders sent to prison accounts for 44 to 49 percent
of the long-term growth in state incarceration rates.[8]

Length of stay in prison has grown for all types of crimes. Between
1990 and 2009, the average time served rose by nearly 25 percent for
property crimes and by roughly 37 percent for violent and drug crimes,
the Pew Center on the States estimates. Overall, Pew estimated that
individuals released from prison in 2009 spent nine months longer
behind bars than offenders released 20 years ago.[9]
The increase in average sentences has contributed as much to the
growth in incarceration rates as the rise in the share of offenders
sent to prison, and possibly slightly more.

While
incarceration rates have risen in every state in recent decades, the
impacts have been most acute for a small but geographically
concentrated number of neighborhoods. A 2010 paper by two Harvard
criminologists found that incarceration rates in the early and
mid-2000s were below 500 per 100,000 adult residents for the majority of
Chicago neighborhoods but were more than eight times greater— over 4,000 per 100,000 adult residents — for a small subset of clustered Chicago neighborhoods.[10]
Another study found that North Carolina’s incarceration rate in 2000
was 335 per 100,000 residents statewide, well below the national
average at the time, but was 8,000 per 100,000 adult residents in one
neighborhood.[11]

Communities
most afflicted by high incarceration rates have high levels of
poverty, unemployment, and racial segregation. “To state the claim
bluntly, imprisonment and its effects are concentrated in neighborhoods
where black people and poor people live,” political scientist Traci
Burch has written.[12]

High
levels of incarceration impose significant human and economic costs.
People with criminal convictions face serious challenges in finding
stable and adequate employment.[13]
Time behind bars is generally time lost developing the skills and
education increasingly necessary in today’s labor market, a particular
problem given that formerly incarcerated people typically have lower
levels of education.[14]
(Nearly 40 percent of state prisoners had not finished high school
and only 11 percent had attended college, a Justice Department study
conducted in 2003 found.)[15]
For many, incarceration also carries a strong stigma, which can
discourage potential employers from hiring. In addition, in some
states, legal barriers prevent people with criminal convictions from
holding certain jobs.[16]

Even those who do find employment typically earn less than otherwise-similar people who have not been incarcerated.[17] A Pew studyfound
that men with a previous criminal conviction worked roughly nine fewer
weeks, and earned 40 percent less, each year than otherwise similarnon-offenders.
These effects accumulate over time. The study also found that men’s
total earnings by age 48 are less than half among men who have been
incarcerated than among comparable men who have not been incarcerated.
In addition, the study found that overall, incarceration reduces the
total earnings of all black men — not just ex-offenders — by 9 percent.[18]

Incarceration also increases poverty, for those who have been to prison as well as other household members, including children.Many
inmates are also parents and/or partners, and their incarceration
leaves households with one less potential wage earner. One study
examining poverty and state-level incarceration rates between 1980 and
2004 determined that if incarceration rates had not increased, the
official poverty rate would have fallen by roughly 20 percent over that
period instead of remaining relatively stable.[19]
A 2008 study estimated that more than 2.7 million children had a
parent behind bars, and that this significantly increased the
children’s likelihood of being poor.[20]

Because
high levels of incarceration are heavily localized, the individual and
family effects of imprisonment accumulate to limit entire communities’
economic and social opportunities. Removing large numbers of
working-age men and women from the community depletes the human capital
needed to build stable neighborhoods.[21] That depletion, in turn, tends to reduce economic and social opportunities even for community members with no interaction
with the criminal justice system. A 2003 study found that as
incarceration rates rise in a given county, unemployment rates
subsequently rise for the county’s non-incarcerated African Americans.[22]

High Incarceration Rates Present Mounting Fiscal Challenge

As
the number of individuals connected to the criminal justice system has
ballooned, so has state corrections spending, which more than doubled
between 1986 and 2013 (after adjusting for inflation), from $20 billion
to over $47 billion.[23]
Spending rose in every state except Virginia, by more than four times
in nine states (Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) and by five times
in three of those states (Colorado, Idaho, and Pennsylvania).

The share
of state general-fund dollars going to corrections rose as well
between 1986 and 2013, from 4.7 percent to nearly 7 percent nationally.[24] For most states, corrections spending is now the third-largest category of spending, behind only education and health care.[25]
In four states (Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, and Vermont), corrections
accounts for more than 11 percent of state general fund spending.

Growth
in corrections spending has outpaced growth in expenditures in other
critical areas of state budgets, such as K-12 and higher education.
State spending on higher education — that is, money spent through the
state budget, not by students and families through tuition — rose by
less than 6 percent between 1986 and 2013, after adjusting for
inflation. State support for K-12 education grew by 69 percent over
this period.[26] But corrections spending jumped by 141 percent.
Eleven states spent more general funds on corrections than on higher
education in 2013; Oregon spent more than twice as much. In 12 other
states, corrections spending was at least 70 percent of state support
for higher education.[27]

If
states were still spending the same amount on corrections as they did
in the mid-1980s, adjusted for inflation, they would have about $28
billion more available each year for education and other productive
investments.

States Are Underinvesting in Educating Children in Low-Income Neighborhoods

State
economies — and, in particular, the economies of many low-income
neighborhoods — would be stronger over time if states spent less in
maintaining extremely high prison populations and more to educate
children and young adults.

In recent years, though, states
have cut education funding, in some cases by large amounts. At least
30 states are providing less general funding per student this year for
K-12 schools than in state fiscal year 2008, before the Great Recession
hit, after adjusting for inflation.[28]
In 14 states, the reduction exceeds 10 percent. The three states with
the deepest funding cuts since the recession hit - Alabama, Arizona,
and Oklahoma - are among the ten states with the highest incarceration
rates.

Cuts in state funding for colleges and universities have
been even deeper. The average state has cut higher education funding
per student by 23 percent since the recession hit, after adjusting for
inflation. The two states with the deepest cuts - ver 40 percent - are
Arizona and Louisiana, both in the top ten for incarceration rates.[29]

Many
states have also cut funding substantially for preschool programs. Of
the 40 states that help fund preschools, 28 now have lower per-child
funding than before the recession hit.[30]
Many of the deepest cuts occurred in the highest-incarcerating states.
Six of the ten states with the highest incarceration rates - Arizona,
Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas - cut preschool
funding per child by more than 15 percent between 2008 and 2013.[31]

By
reordering their priorities to invest more in education, states could
start repairing the damage done by these recession-era cuts and
otherwise improve their education systems, especially in high-poverty
neighborhoods most directly affected by high incarceration rates. They
could, for example:

Expand access to high-quality preschool.
A substantial body of research indicates that children from
low-income families who attend a high-quality preschool program improve
their cognitive skills and tend to earn more as adults.[32] Yet only a little over one-third
of 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families nationally are enrolled
in preschool, including both public and private programs.[33] Only New Jersey and the District of Columbia have enrollment rates exceeding 50 percent.

While
some high-incarcerating states perform comparatively well on this
measure, others do not. Mississippi enrolls nearly half of its
low-income 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool, for example, but Arizona
enrolls only about 27 percent.

Reduce class sizes in high-poverty schools. Evidence suggests that reducing class sizes can boost achievement, especially in the early grades and for low-income students.[34] After the recession hit, though, class sizes rose nationally and in a number of states.[35] Kansas schools, for example, had 19,000 more students last school year than they did in 2009, but 665 fewer teachers.[36] Further, in a handful of states, teachers in high-poverty schools
have more students, on average, than teachers in low-poverty schools -
the opposite of what is generally required to produce an equitable
education system.[37]
In Alabama, for example, the average teacher in a high-poverty school
district had 19 students in 2011, while the average teacher in a
low-poverty district had 13. Four of the states with this backward
arrangement - Alabama, Arizona, Florida, and Texas - are among the ten
highest-incarceration states.

Revise state funding formulas to invest more in high-poverty neighborhoods.
Schools receive most of their funding from a combination of state and
local sources. The primary local source is the property tax, which
tends to generate more revenue for schools in wealthier areas than in
poorer ones because it is based on property values. State funding can
help counteract that inequity.[38] Unfortunately, a number of states provide less funding
for high-poverty schools than for low-poverty schools, while some
others provide about the same funding to high- and low-poverty
districts. As of 2011, only 14 states provided at least 5 percent more
funding per student for high-poverty districts than low-poverty
districts.

Further,
many states provide inadequate funding for schools overall. While some
interstate differences in funding levels are to be expected, given
variations in wage rates, poverty levels, population density, and other
factors, a number of states have low per-student funding levels even
after controlling for these factors. Based on one study that accounted
for these factors, none of the states with the ten highest incarceration rates ranked in the top half of states for school funding per student in 2011.

Increase college enrollment and graduation rates for students from low-income families. Students
from low-income families are much less likely to enroll in college
than students from wealthier households. Only about half of recent high
school graduates from households in the lowest income quintile
(earning less than $18,300) enrolled in postsecondary education in
2012, compared to more than 80 percent of students from households in
the top quintile (earning over $90,500 a year).

In
addition, low-income students who enroll in college are much less
likely to graduate than their higher-income counterparts. One study
found that only a quarter of low-income students who began college in
the 2003-04 school year had attained a bachelor’s degree six years
later, compared to nearly 60 percent of high-income students.[41]

Adding to the difficulties facing low-income students, sharp
reductions in state funding for higher education have led to
significant tuition increases. Tuition at the average public college
or university nationally is up $1,936 (28 percent) since the 2007-08
school year, after adjusting for inflation.[42]
While more federal financial aid is now available to offset rising
tuition for low-income students, increases in costs of room and board
along with a higher “sticker price” at many colleges and universities
likely cause some students to choose not to enroll.[43]

Reforms Can Reduce Incarceration Rates and Produce Savings

States can reduce their incarceration rates and realize significant long-term budget savings without harming public safety.[44]
To do this, state policymakers need to enact reforms that target the
main drivers of high incarceration rates: the number of people admitted
(or re-admitted) into correctional facilities and the length of their
prison stays. States should consider four basic kinds of reforms:

Decriminalize certain activities and reclassify certain low-level felonies.
The increased use of prison — and longer prison sentences — to punish
crimes such as the possession of certain drugs, like marijuana, has
contributed heavily to the growth in mass incarceration. Lawmakers
should look to reduce or eliminate criminal penalties for such crimes
when doing so would not affect public safety.

Expand
the use of alternatives to prison for non-violent crimes and divert
people with mental health or substance abuse issues away from the
criminal justice system altogether. Policymakers should
assess the range of sentencing alternatives available in their state,
such as drug and mental health courts and related treatment, community
correction centers, community service, sex offender treatment, and
fines and victim restitution. Whenever possible, people whose crimes
stem from addiction or mental illness should be diverted into treatment
programs rather than sent to prison. These treatment programs should
be high-quality and adequately funded.[45]

Reduce the length of prison terms and parole/probation periods.
Policymakers should reform unnecessarily harsh sentencing policies,
including “truth-in-sentencing” requirements and mandatory minimum
sentences, and allow inmates to reduce their sentences through good
time or earned time policies. States also should expand programs that
enable inmates meeting certain requirements to receive favorable
decisions in parole hearings, especially in states where parole grant
rates remain low. Funding for programs to help inmates meet these
requirements, in areas such as substance abuse, anger management,
literacy, or higher education, has not kept pace with the growth in
state prison populations.[46]

Restrict the use of prison for technical violations of parole/probation. The
share of individuals entering prison due to a parole violation grew
rapidly between the late 1970s and the late 2000s. While it has fallen
more recently, parole revocations accounted for more than a quarter of
admissions to state prisons in 2013.[47]
Some of these violations are technical, such as missing a meeting
with a probation officer or failing a drug test. States should heavily
restrict the use of prison for technical parole violators and implement
graduated sanctions for more serious parole violations.

States can also adopt more effective probation policies. For
example, Hawaii has sharply reduced probation revocations with a
program that punishes infractions more quickly and with more certainty,
but with much shorter periods of incarceration.[48]

These
reforms are complementary; adopting just one or two won’t shrink a
state’s prison population as much as a more comprehensive set of
reforms that improves “front-end” sentencing and admission policies as
well as “back-end” release and re-entry policies.

What Policy Mechanisms Do States Need to Support Those Reforms?

States
wishing to use savings from criminal justice reforms for more
productive purposes would do well to adopt planning and budgeting
mechanisms that can help them shift priorities, including the following.

High-Quality, Long-Term Forecast of Potential Savings

Lawmakers
often don’t have the information needed to make educated decisions on
proposed criminal justice reform legislation because they lack an
official estimate of the fiscal impact of the reforms, also known as a
“fiscal note.” Roughly 40 percent of the major criminal justice bills
enacted in states in 2009-2011 had no fiscal note. In about half of the
states where a fiscal note was produced, the notes projected
fiscal impacts no more than two years into the future. Moreover, some
states had little or no process to ensure that the fiscal notes were
credible, such as a review by independent analysts. (See Box 1.)[49]

Box 1: Fiscal Note Best Practices

When drafting fiscal notes, states should strive to make them:a

Consistent.
Fiscal notes should be produced in a consistent format by trusted,
non-partisan staff. All major bills that have reached a certain stage
in the legislative process should be analyzed for their fiscal impact.

Properly researched.
Fiscal notes should estimate savings and potential costs and include a
detailed explanation in instances where an estimate cannot be
calculated. At a minimum, they should seek to forecast five years into
the future.

Detailed. In complex reform
bills, the analysis should extend to the bills’ individual major
provisions. Fiscal notes should also attempt to estimate impacts on
local as well as state finances and on the size of prison and jail
populations.

Accessible. Fiscal notes should
be clearly written and available online and should include contact
information for the analyst or staff responsible.

a See Michael Leachman et al.,
“Improving Budget Analysis of State Criminal Justice Reforms: A
Strategy for Better Outcomes and Saving Money,” Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities and American Civil Liberties Union, January 11, 2012,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3654.

Accepted Process to Estimate Annual Savings Once Reforms Are Enacted

To
capture the savings from criminal justice reforms for more productive
human capital investments (including education), states need to
estimate how much specific reforms save following enactment. These
estimates need to be produced each time a state writes its budget -
annually in most states - so that lawmakers can incorporate the savings
into the budget. Estimates need to be produced in a manner that is
accepted as credible by legislators, other policymakers, and the
public, so that the process does not bog down in arguments over the
numbers.

A California ballot initiative (Proposition 47) could
serve as a model. It would reform sentencing policies and
place all resulting savings in a special fund to be used for certain
specified purposes, primarily addiction and mental health treatment and
school programs for high-risk youth. (See Box 2.) To determine how
much to deposit into the fund, Proposition 47 would require the state
finance department to estimate the savings attributable to the measure
annually.

Alternatively, states can choose to allocate savings
based on estimates produced during the initial fiscal note process.
For this to occur, it is important that fiscal notes be properly
researched, consistent, and provide detailed estimates of savings far
enough into the future. Such a process would be similar to what occurs
at the federal level when the Congressional Budget Office estimates
the potential costs or savings of proposed legislation and these
estimates are then used to determine the savings that can be spent in
subsequent years.[50]

Established Mechanism to Shift Savings to Investments in Human Capital

States
typically have three alternative ways to shift savings from criminal
justice reforms into human capital investments. They can:

Establish a mechanism to automatically estimate the savings and divert them into a special fund.
One approach is for policymakers enacting criminal justice reforms to
simultaneously create a “reinvestment fund” that captures savings from
the reforms and allocates those savings largely to human capital
investments, including educational programming targeted to high-poverty
communities and improved mental health and substance abuse treatment
programs. As the state reports each year the estimated savings from
the reforms, an equal amount is automatically deposited into the fund.
The legislation establishing the fund would specify how the money is
to be spent. California’s Proposition 47 follows this approach.

Appropriate savings through state budget processes.
Through the annual budget process, policymakers can estimate the
savings from criminal justice reforms and determine how much of those
savings to reinvest and in what programs. This option gives
policymakers greater flexibility and control. On the other hand, it
can place reinvestments in future years in jeopardy as political
priorities change or fiscal and economic conditions shift.

Reallocate spending at the department or agency level.
Within departments or agencies, states can shift dollars away from
incarceration and into human capital investments. For instance, after
North Carolina enacted criminal justice reforms in 2011, policymakers
shifted $16 million into community-based treatments by drawing on
resources that were already in the Department of Public Safety’s budget
but would no longer be needed for corrections costs.[51]

Box 2: California Ballot Proposal Offers Model

Proposition
47 (“The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act”), which will appear on
California’s statewide ballot on November 4, contains criminal justice
reforms designed to reduce the state prison population, coupled with
measures to reinvest the savings.

California has the nation’s second-largest prison system, with over 130,000 individuals under state jurisdiction.a
With the system operating at roughly 140 percent of capacity,
California has located more than 15,000 prisoners in private prison
facilities and out-of-state prisons.b In addition, a federal
court ruling that prison overcrowding is preventing the state from
giving prisoners adequate medical and mental health care means that
California must reduce its prison population.

To accomplish this, Proposition 47 would:

Make
targeted sentencing reductions by reclassifying certain offenses from
felonies to misdemeanors, for both current and future offenders.
Proposition 47 would reclassify seven types of non-violent drug and
property crimes (such as shoplifting, drug possession, and petty theft)
from felonies to misdemeanors,c thereby shortening the
maximum penalty from a multi-year prison sentence to one year in jail.
Since the change would be retroactive, qualifying prisoners could apply
for resentencing and see their sentences reduced.

Require the state to calculate the savings from the reforms each year and deposit them in a dedicated fund.
The initiative would require California’s Department of Finance to
estimate the state savings attributable to the measure each year and
deposit them in a special fund.

Earmark the savings for specific investments.
Savings deposited in the fund could only be used for three explicit
purposes and in specified proportions: 65 percent would go to mental
health services, drug treatment, and “diversion programs” designed to
enable offenders to avoid criminal charges and a criminal record; 25
percent would go to supporting at-risk youth in schools; and 10 percent
would go to victim services.

California’s Legislative
Analyst’s Office has estimated that Proposition 47 would likely cut the
state’s prison population by “several thousand” inmates while
generating corrections savings in the “low hundreds of millions” of
dollars annually.d

States
adopting significant criminal justice reforms can create an oversight
commission to craft and recommend further reforms, propose legislation,
assist in implementation, and evaluate the results. The commission
should include experts and individuals rooted in communities most
affected by high incarceration rates.

South Carolina, for
instance, created a bipartisan sentencing reform commission in 2008 to
recommend changes to state law. The commission proposed a set of
reforms in 2009 that, among other things, required fiscal impact
statements for future criminal justice legislation, eliminated
mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, and expanded parole
eligibility for certain offenses. Projections indicated that these
reforms, enacted in 2010, would slow the growth of the prison
population over the next five years by 7.3 percent and save roughly
$241 million over that period. At the commission’s urging, policymakers
also created a standing oversight committee with the authority to
spend part of the resulting savings.[52]

END NOTES:

[1]
New York and New Jersey reduced their prison populations by 26 percent
between 1999 and 2012. California reduced its prison population by 23
percent between 2006 and 2012. See Marc Mauer and Nazgol Ghandnoosh,
“Fewer Prisoners, Less Crime: A Tale of Three States,”The Sentencing
Project, July 2014, http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Fewer_Prisoners_Less_Crime.pdf[2]
CBPP calculations, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Sentenced prisoners
under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities,
December 31, 1978-2013,” http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nps.
Note that while the average person often uses the terms “prison” and
“jail” interchangeably, they refer to different criminal justice
facilities. As defined by the Bureau of Justice Statistics; “[j]ails
are locally-operated, short term facilities that hold inmates awaiting
trial or sentencing or both, and inmates sentenced to a term of less
than 1 year, typically misdemeanants. Prisons are long-term facilities
run by the state or the federal government and typically hold felons
and inmates with sentences of more than 1 year.” See http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=qa&iid=322.[3] Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, and Steve Redburn (editors), The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences, National Academies Press, 2014.[4] CBPP calculations, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “National Prisoner Statistics,” http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nps.[5]
CBPP calculations, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Imprisonment rate of
sentenced prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal
correctional authorities per 100,000 U.S. residents, December 31,
1978-2013,” http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nps.[6]
CBPP analysis of incarceration data from BJS and FBI, Uniform Crime
Reports, prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data.[7] Travis et al., p. 49.[8] Ibid.[9]
Pew Center on the States, “Time Served: The High Cost, Low Return of
Longer Prison Terms,” 2012. Other studies have produced similar
findings. The National Research Council found that between 1980 and
2010, the time served for aggravated assault, burglary, and robbery
increased by 83, 41, and 79 percent, respectively.[10] Robert J. Sampson and Charles Loeffler, “Punishment’s Place: The Local Concentration of Mass Incarceration,” Daedalus,
Summer 2010, pp. 20-31. (See Figure 3, “Spatial Concentration of
Incarceration in Chicago, 2000-2005,” on p. 24.) See also Visher and
Farrell (2005), which found that over half of former male prisoners
reentering Chicago from prison returned to just seven of the city’s 77
distinct community areas.[11]
The study looked at census “block groups.” Traci Burch, “The Old Jim
Crow: Racial Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Imprisonment,”
American Bar Foundation, 2008, http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/working_papers/Burch_Old_Jim%20Crow.pdf.[12] Traci Burch, “The Spatial Concentration of Imprisonment and Racial Political Inequality,” https://apw.polisci.wisc.edu/archives/Burch%20Spatial%20Concentration%20of%20Imprisonment.pdf.[13] See, for example, Holzer et al. (2003), Raphael (2007), and Schmitt (2010) on the impacts of incarceration on employment and wage prospects.[14]
Steven Raphael, “Improving Employment Prospects for Former Prison
Inmates: Challenges and Policy,” National Bureau of Economic Research,
April 2010, http://www.nber.org/papers/w15874.pdf.[15]
Caroline W. Harlow, “Education and Correctional Populations,” U.S.
Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, March 2003.[16] Jon Schmitt and Kris Warner, “Ex-offenders and the Labor Market,” Center for Economic and Policy Research, November 2010.[17] Bruce Western, “The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality,” American Sociological Review, August 2002,http://scholar.harvard.edu/brucewestern/files/western_asr.pdf.[18] Pew Charitable Trusts, “Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility,” 2010.[19] Robert H. DeFina and Lance Hannon, “The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Poverty,” Crime and Delinquency, February 23, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1348049[20] “Collateral Costs.”[21] Todd R. Clear, Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse, Oxford University Press, 2007.[22]
Clear, citing William J. Sabol and James P. Lynch, “Assessing the
Longer-run Effects of Incarceration: Impact on Families and
Employment,” 2003.[23]
CBPP calculations, National Association of State Budget Officers. The
year 1986 represents the first year of complete budget data on
corrections spending that states reported to NASBO. State spending
levels from years prior to 2013 are expressed in 2013 dollars.[24] The share declined in only six states: Alaska, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Virginia, and Washington.[25]
CBPP calculations, data from NASBO. Education spending includes
spending for higher education. Overall in FY 2012, roughly 45 percent
of state general fund dollars went to education (K-12 and higher
education combined), with another 20 percent going to health care.[26] The number of K-12 students also rose over this period, by about 10 million students or about 25 percent.[27] CBPP calculations, data from NASBO.[28]
Michael Leachman and Chris Mai, “Most States Still Funding Schools Less
Than Before the Recession,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
October 16, 2014, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4213.[29]
Michael Mitchell, Vincent Palacios, and Michael Leachman, “States Still
Funding Higher Education Below Pre-Recession Levels,” Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities, May 1, 2014, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=4135.[30]
From 2007-08 to 2012-13, the latest data available. Authors’ analysis
of data from National Institute for Early Education Research, The State of Preschool 2013, http://nieer.org/sites/nieer/files/yearbook2013.pdf.[31] Ibid.
Louisiana, also among the ten highest-incarcerating states, is
excluded from this list because most or all of its very deep (76
percent) cut in state pre-K funding was offset by an increase in the
state’s use of federal TANF funds for the same purpose.[32] See Timothy J. Bartik, “From Preschool to Prosperity,” W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2014, http://www.upjohn.org/sites/default/files/WEfocus/FromPreschooltoProsperity.pdf. See also Julia Isaacs, “Research Brief #1: State Pre-Kindergarten,” Brookings Institution, September 2008, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2008/9/early%20programs%20isaacs/09_early_programs_brief1.pdf.[33]
Bruce Baker, David Sciarra, and Danielle Farrie, “Is School Funding
Fair: A National Report Card,” Education Law Center, Third Edition,
February 2014, p. 32, http://www.schoolfundingfairness.org/ .[34] See Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, “Does Class Size Matter?” National Education Policy Center, February 2014, http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/does-class-size-matter.
See also Matthew M. Chingos and Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, “Class
Size: What Research Says and What it Means for State Policy,”
Brookings Institution, May 11, 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/05/11-class-size-whitehurst-chingos.[35] See National Center for Educational Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey, 2007-08, Table 8 and 2011-12, Table 7.[36] Kansas Center for Economic Growth, “Quality at Risk: Impact of Education Cuts,” August 2014, http://realprosperityks.com/kac/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/KCEG-school-funding-report3.pdf.[37]
Baker, Sciarra, and Farrie, Table 8. A “high-poverty district” in
this study has a poverty rate of 30 percent, while a “low-poverty
district” has a poverty rate of zero.[38] See, for example, Bruce D. Baker, “Evaluating the Recession’s Impact on State School Finance Systems,” Education Policy Analysis Archives, Volume 22, Number 91, September 15, 2014.[39] Baker, Sciarra, and Farrie, pp. 17-18.[40] Baker, Sciarra, and Farrie, p. 13.[41] Sandy Baum et al., “Education Pays 2013: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society,” College Board, October 2013, http://trends.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/education-pays-2013-full-report-022714.pdf[42] Mitchell, Palacios, and Leachman.[43]
Overall, the cost of attending college has risen for low-income
students because the cost of room and board has increased, too. As a
result, the net cost of attendance at four-year public institutions for
these students increased 12 percent from 2008 to 2012, after adjusting
for inflation.[44]
Marc Mauer and Jenni Gainsborough, “Diminishing Returns: Crime and
Incarceration in the 1990s,”The Sentencing Project, September 2000, http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/DimRet.pdf.[45]
See ACLU of Southern California, “A Way Forward: Diverting People with
Mental Illness from Inhumane and Expensive Jails into Community-Based
Treatment that Works,” July 2014, https://www.aclusocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/JAILS-REPORT.pdf. See also Families Against Mandatory Minimums, “Alternatives to Incarceration in a Nutshell,” July 8, 2011, http://famm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FS-Alternatives-in-a-Nutshell-7.8.pdf.[46] Sarah Lawrence et al., “The Practice and Promise of Prison Programming,” Urban Institute, May 2002, http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/410493_PrisonProgramming.pdf.
See also Rand Corporation, “Evaluating the Effectiveness of
Correctional Education: A Meta-Analysis of Programs that Provide
Education to Incarcerated Adults” 2013, p. 60.[47]
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Number of parole violation admissions of
sentenced prisoners to state or federal prisons, 1978-2013.[48]
Significant research has been done on Hawaii’s HOPE program. See
Hawken, Angela & Mark Klaiman “Managing Drug Involved Probationers
with Swift and Certain Sanctions: Evaluating Hawaii’s HOPE,” December
2009, U.S. Department of Justice. For a summary of the program and its
results see, Pew Center on the States, “The Impact of Hawaii’s HOPE
Program on Drug Use, Crime and Recidivism,” January 2010, and VERA
Institute of Justice, “More than the Sum of Its Parts: Why Hawaii’s
Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) Program Works,” 2012.[49] Michael Leachman et al.,
“Improving Budget Analysis of State Criminal Justice Reforms: A
Strategy for Better Outcomes and Saving Money,” Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities and American Civil Liberties Union, January 11, 2012,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3654. [50]
Regardless of which method is used, states would do well to adopt the
practice of publishing a “current services baseline” — a projection of
the state’s costs to maintain the same level of services, absent any
relevant policy changes —in order to more easily estimate the savings
attributable to criminal justice reforms. Current services baseline
projections take into account inflation and other changes in the cost of
providing services, changes in the size of the population being
served, and past rule changes that are still being phased in. Such
projections are fairly uncommon at the state level; a 2011 CBPP report
found that fewer than half of states prepare current services
baselines. See Elizabeth McNichol and Dylan Grundman, “The Current
Services Baseline: A Tool for Understanding Budget Choices,” October
21, 2011, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3602.[51] Nancy Lavigne et al., “Justice Reinvestment Initiative State Assessment Report,” Urban Institute, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2014, http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412994-Justice-Reinvestment-Initiative-State-Assessment-Report.pdf.[52]
The committee was required to spend the savings only on stronger
parole and probation programs. American Civil Liberties Union, “Smart
Reform is Possible: States Reducing Incarceration Rates and Costs While
Protecting Communities,” 2011, https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/smartreformispossible.pdf.